Rummage sale will help children in Honduras live better lives

Betsy Hake, founder of Jericho Ministries, shares chocolate eggs with children in Honduras. Mountain Life Church will hold a rummage sale to raise funds for a service mission to help Hake in Honduras in the summer.

Parkite Jill Story would love to see more people get involved with community service, so she's coordinating a rummage sale at Mountain Life Church this Saturday.

Furniture, sports equipment, fine art and other items will be up for grabs from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The money raised will help Mountain Life Church send a service-mission group to Honduras on a service mission from June 15-22.

"We are raising funds for travel expenses and on-site initiatives we are planning for the kids who stay at Jericho Ministries Christian School and Jericho House," Story said.

The school and home are designed for at-risk kids in the developing Central American nation and are run by Betsy Hake, founder of Jericho Ministries.

It’s just as much a cultural experience for the kids in Honduras as it is for the kids we take...” Jill Story,rummage sale volunteer coordinator

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"She does a phenomenal job of breaking these kids' destructive life cycle," Story said. "Many of them have been involved in gangs, and some of these children's mothers resorted to prostitution to make a living. Betsy brings these kids into the school to help them find better lives."

The group that will go to Honduras is composed of two families and Story.

"While we are there, we will build a gatehouse for the school, and some of the money will go towards that," Story said. "We will also host a sports camp and then take the school kids on a few hikes."

The group will head to see the waterfall at La Tigra National Park and do other local outreach from June 18 to June 26.

"I'm looking forward to seeing how Betsy and Jericho Ministries work down there," Story said.

Donation drop off for the rummage sale is between 1 p.m. – 7 p.m. on Friday, April 24, at Mountain Life Church. If people have items that are too big to drop off, they can call Story at 801-860-4936 or email her at jillrstory@gmail.com to arrange a pickup.

"The people of Park City are very generous," she said. "We actually had one couple offer me all the items in their storage unit."

Mountain Life Church connected with Jericho Ministries through Healing Nations, a nonprofit formerly known as Hunger for Life, in Salt Lake City.

"The network partners with different global organizations and has done work in Central and South America and Africa," Story said. "They match churches with different organizations for these service and cultural visits. It's just as much a cultural experience for the kids in Honduras as it is for the kids we take."

"I would love people to come back with a heart to serve locally at nonprofits like Peace House or the Habitat for Humanity's Restore," she said. "I would also love it for people to want to do service in global places like Uganda."

Story decided she wanted to devote her time to service after a trip to Haiti with the local nonprofit Hope Alliance, a religiously unaffiliated nonprofit helps underserved communities with programs like vision clinics both in Utah and abroad.

"That was an experience I will never forget, so I try to do a service trip once a year and participate in some kind of outreach," she said. "I have not been to Honduras before, so I'm looking forward to it."